Levi
Senior Member
- Messages
- 188
With regard to the FITNET trial results, I have a modest proposal. Its serious, but will sound weird. I am putting up a poll for it. I will make it real short, and we can expand on it if there is interest. Here are the steps:
1) Poll the top 10 ME/CFS MD doctors in the world based on a separate PR poll to determine the top 12 biomarkers for ME/CFS.
2) Using those biomarkers, determine a cohort of 100 bonifide ME/CFS patients. A patient for the study will need 3 biomarkers, and a top 10 ME/CFS MD doctor diagnosis for selection.
3) By random lot select 12 of the ME/CFS patients to be ME/CFS therapists. Train them to approximate the FITNET protocols. Pay them $50/hour for doing online therapy. Assign them a group of ME/CFS patients to do online CBT treatments to ME/CFS patients with similar "dosages" of therapy. Compare the results to FITNET and their controls.
4) If the results are good, then lobby governmental organizations to require fully funded programs that use only bonifide ME/CFS patients who are well paid by these government programs to perform CBT services for other bonifide ME/CFS patients with a diagnosis and at least 3 biomarkers. Make the services free to these patients, and also offer them for free also to bonafide MS, Parkinson's and cancer patients. Make income from this progam exempt from disability earned income restrictions, at least up to a certain level, in order to encourage work from home and avoid a bureaucratic penalty.
Or something like that. Point would be to co-opt the "psych lobby" system that is shaping up to milk insurers and taxpayers for large scale online CBT programs, and take the profit motive away from them. My guess is that someone who really "gets" ME/CFS will do a better job of online therapy than some net monkey in a back room following a script. And the ME/CFS patients could use work from home and extra money.
1) Poll the top 10 ME/CFS MD doctors in the world based on a separate PR poll to determine the top 12 biomarkers for ME/CFS.
2) Using those biomarkers, determine a cohort of 100 bonifide ME/CFS patients. A patient for the study will need 3 biomarkers, and a top 10 ME/CFS MD doctor diagnosis for selection.
3) By random lot select 12 of the ME/CFS patients to be ME/CFS therapists. Train them to approximate the FITNET protocols. Pay them $50/hour for doing online therapy. Assign them a group of ME/CFS patients to do online CBT treatments to ME/CFS patients with similar "dosages" of therapy. Compare the results to FITNET and their controls.
4) If the results are good, then lobby governmental organizations to require fully funded programs that use only bonifide ME/CFS patients who are well paid by these government programs to perform CBT services for other bonifide ME/CFS patients with a diagnosis and at least 3 biomarkers. Make the services free to these patients, and also offer them for free also to bonafide MS, Parkinson's and cancer patients. Make income from this progam exempt from disability earned income restrictions, at least up to a certain level, in order to encourage work from home and avoid a bureaucratic penalty.
Or something like that. Point would be to co-opt the "psych lobby" system that is shaping up to milk insurers and taxpayers for large scale online CBT programs, and take the profit motive away from them. My guess is that someone who really "gets" ME/CFS will do a better job of online therapy than some net monkey in a back room following a script. And the ME/CFS patients could use work from home and extra money.